title: Determination of complement-mediated killing of bacteria by viability staining and bioluminescence.
abstract: Complement-mediated killing of bacteria was monitored by flow cytometric, luminometric, and conventional plate counting methods. A flow cytometric determination of bacterial viability was carried out by using dual staining with a LIVE/DEAD BacLight bacterial viability kit. In addition to the viable cell population, several other populations emerged in the fluorescence histogram, and there was a dramatic decrease in the total cell count in the light-scattering histogram in the course of the complement reaction. To permit luminometric measurements, Bacillus subtilis and Escherichia coli were made bioluminescent by expressing an insect luciferase gene. Addition of substrate after the complement reaction resulted in bioluminescence, the level of which was a measure of the viable cell population. All three methods gave essentially the same killing rate, suggesting that the bacteriolytic activity of serum complement can be measured rapidly and conveniently by using viability stains or bioluminescence. In principle, any bacterial strain can be used for viability staining and flow cytometric analysis. For the bioluminescence measurements genetically engineered bacteria are needed, but the advantage is that it is possible to screen automatically a large number of samples.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry, University of Turku, Finland.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Virta
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lineri
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Kankaanpää
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Karp
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Peltonen
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Nuutila
authors.forename: E M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Lilius
mesh_terms: D001419:Bacteria; D001770:Blood Bactericidal Activity; D003165:Complement System Proteins / Q000502:physiology*; D005434:Flow Cytometry; D008163:Luminescent Measurements; D013194:Staining and Labeling
chemical_list: D003165:Complement System Proteins